The US and the EU support Ukraine not because they love the Ukrainian people, but because this serves their geopolitical interests, the EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told CNN on Monday.

Appearing on Christiane Amanpour’s show, Borrell repeated the assertion of Brussels and Washington that Ukraine was not in any way involved in the Crocus City Hall terrorist attack in Moscow, and urged the US to pass the $60 billion aid package for Kiev.

“You know, the US has a vested interest in supporting Ukraine. Otherwise we would be giving a free pass to Russia. And you know what happens then. Remember Crimea. Remember Syria,” he told Amanpour, without explaining what any of that meant.

A bold, provocative reckoning with our current political delusions and dysfunctions.

Ever since its publication in 1651, Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan has unsettled and challenged how we understand the world. Condemned and vilified by each new generation, his cold political vision continues to see through any number of human political and ethical vanities.

The New Leviathans: Thoughts after Liberalism
by John Gray

The United Nations has altered its statement on Friday’s concert venue terrorist attack in Moscow after the Russian Foreign Ministry questioned the wording of the original message.

In a post on Telegram early on Saturday, ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova thanked the office of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for the “timely correction and formulation of a clear position.”

In a revised version of the statement, Farhan Haq, deputy spokesperson for the UN chief, wrote that Guterres “condemns in the strongest possible terms today’s terrorist attack at a concert hall outside Moscow.”

The official also extended “deep condolences to the bereaved families and the people and the Government of the Russian Federation.”

Back in the Summer of 1997, at the height of yet another crisis surrounding the seemingly never-ending saga of UN weapons inspection teams led by yours truly [SCOTT RITTER] trying to gain access to sites considered by Iraq to be sensitive to their national security, I had surrounded the headquarters of the Iraqi intelligence service (the Mukhabarat), and was insisting that I be granted access to specific locations inside the headquarters deemed relevant to the Security Council’s mandate governing the disarmament of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs. My chief interlocutor was General Amer al-Sa’adi, the former head of Iraq’s military industry and, at the time, a special advisor to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

A cabal of neo-conservative, anti-China politicians who call themselves the Wolverines, a nod to the 1980s Patrick Swayze movie Red Dawn, have just spread their network to Tasmania, thanks to last night’s election of Eric Abetz, and are ramping up their presence in WA. 

Robert Barwick reports. 

Former soldier Andrew Hastie and Tony Abbott are trying to install a candidate in WA who has written a fictional book to scare people about a Chinese invasion of Australia. Meanwhile, ultra-conservative former senator Eric Abetz has just been elected to the Tasmanian Parliament. 

PEN America, once an important defender of rights for writers, editors and artists, has, under the direction of former State Department official Suzanne Nossel, abandoned its mission, destroyed its credibility and provoked a revolt among its members. 

By Chris Hedges / Original to ScheerPost 

Its refusal to condemn the genocide in Gaza and Israel’s targeted killings of writers, academics and journalists, has seen numerous writers withdraw from the annual PEN World Voices Festival in New York and Los Angeles, scheduled for April and May.

Now is the time for talks that will bring us closer to peace and away from a deadly and destructive war with no end in sight.

There has been a complete collapse of diplomacy between the US and Russia, and a near-total collapse between the US and China. Europe, which has made itself far too dependent on the US for its own good, simply follows the Washington line. The absence of diplomacy creates a dynamic of escalation that can lead to nuclear war. The highest priority for global peace is to re-establish US diplomacy with Russia and China.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5a_0nbm7Erc

MAKE A DEAL PRONTO BEFORE THE SHIT HITS THE FAN:

NO NATO IN "UKRAINE" (WHAT'S LEFT OF IT)

THE DONBASS REPUBLICS ARE NOW BACK IN THE RUSSIAN FOLD — AS THEY USED TO BE PRIOR 1922. THE RUSSIANS WON'T ABANDON THESE AGAIN.

THESE WILL ALSO INCLUDE ODESSA, KHERSON AND KHARKIV.....

CRIMEA IS RUSSIAN — AS IT USED TO BE PRIOR 1954

A MEMORANDUM OF NON-AGGRESSION BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE USA.

EASY.

THE WEST KNOWS IT.

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW....

The truth about LNG

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KAUYI_eX24

More and more gigantic tankers carrying LNG, liquefied natural gas, are crisscrossing the oceans – and we're building infrastructure to trade ever larger amounts. But shouldn't we be moving AWAY from fossil fuels?

The US empire SABOTAGES entire nations for the same reason it sabotages domestic infrastructure... to KEEP US DOWN!

https://www.brighteon.com/a1ee8938-260b-4755-affb-5b68e2fea5c2

THIS IS CONSPIRACY THEORY.... AND THE CONSPIRACY COULD BE TRUE!....

GUS LEONISKY, POLITICAL CARTOONIST SINCE 1951, HAS NO WAY TO VERIFY THE TRUTH...

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NONETHELESS....

The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal interviews Swedish engineer Erik Andersson, who led the first independent investigation to the site of the Nordstream pipelines blast sites, on the Swedish government’s sudden closing of the investigation into the terror attack on the eve of joining NATO.

Andersson also addresses US meddling in Swedish politics, and the potential consequences of Stockholm surrendering its traditional neutrality to the anti-Russian alliance.

By Max Blumenthal / The Grayzone

https://scheerpost.com/2024/03/19/max-blumenthal-sweden-closing-nordsteam-investigation-is-a-shocking-coverup-says-investigator/

As I was saying to Diocletian over Prosecco just last week, it is hard to run an empire these days. You have to lie to people more or less incessantly to keep the troops minding the perimeter in supplies. No falsehood is too preposterous to gain the public’s acquiescence. At times you have to deceive even the Senate. 

“Ah, yes, the solons,” the old persecutor replied. “It is mere ceremony with them. You can keep the senators in the dark if protecting the arcana imperii requires it. They usually prefer this, indeed. As for the vox populi, one must occasionally feign to hear it, but there is no need to pay any attention.”

By Patrick Lawrence / Original to ScheerPost

Haiti’s bloody history is repeating itself once again as its streets erupt in gang violence, the spectre of starvation stalks society and the healthcare system has collapsed. The question of what, or who, could bring stability to this fragile Caribbean nation is asked with despairing regularity by outside observers as they see images of Port-au-Prince in flames and the brutality of the latest gang leader fighting his way to international attention.

Mazal u’ Bracha has been the Hebrew expression for sealing transactions in the international diamond trade for hundreds of years – in Amsterdam until World War II, and Antwerp since then. Literally, it means “luck and blessing”. Sociologically, it means that if you default, the community of Jewish diamantaires will impose the sanction of religious law,  redline your credit, and you will be unable to take goods on approval, buy, borrow, trade, or continue in the business.

by John Helmer, Moscow 
     @bears_with

When Donald Trump surprised the political establishment and won the 2016 US presidential election, there was a mad scramble within the Turnbull government to get in touch with him.

Australia’s then ambassador to the US, Joe Hockey, came to the rescue by getting Trump’s number from the US-based Greg Norman, who was a friend of the golf-mad president-elect.

For Hockey, it was the beginning of a tough four years in Washington as he worked day and night to keep sweet with a volatile administration that had little regard for the alliance, or the region more broadly.